The Thrifty Cookbook: 476 Ways to Eat Well With Leftovers (12 page)

When I was a child, almost all the meat fat was saved as dripping and then used for cooking the Sunday roast of beef or lamb, or for helping the potatoes and other roast vegetables on their way. If you want it to, it can take the place of olive oil in cooking.

If you are roasting a duck or goose, pour off the rivers of melting fat and keep in a covered bowl or jar in the fridge for roasting potatoes; the fat ‘boils’ at a high temperature, helping to make the crispest roast potatoes possible. Pour the fat from almost any roast meat (except chicken, which will not set) into a small bowl and store in the fridge. Use this ‘dripping’ whenever you roast another joint or for Yorkshire puddings – times when olive oil just doesn’t have the same effect.

I don’t, by the way, keep the fat from frying bacon, as its taste is almost too powerful to use with anything else. But I do keep all the bacon rinds until I have a good handful and bake them in a moderate oven (180°C/Gas Mark 4) until they have turned into a crispy bird’s nest. Better than crisps. Please
don’t
pour any fats down the sink. Let them cool and then put them in a sealed plastic bag in the bin – or invest in a biodegradable fat trap (see
page 248
), designed to be kept in the fridge until it’s full and then thrown away.

Sauces are crucial for leftovers: home-made mayonnaise will transform post-Christmas sandwiches, while a good hollandaise turns the ends of boiled ham into a perfect eggs Benedict with the help of a toasted muffin and a poached egg. A good white, cheese or tomato sauce can form the basis of a bake, gratin or stew and all of them compensate for the fact that leftover meat is more likely to be dry than juicy. Then there’s custard, an ideal way of using up egg yolks and a perfect accompaniment to fruit, whether stewed, baked or in pies or crumbles. It’s worth getting the hang of these basic sauces – many of the recipes in this book refer back to them.

White sauce, or béchamel, comes in handy for fish pie, moussaka, cauliflower cheese and other vegetable bakes, pies and soufflés. If you warm the milk before you start, it makes things much easier.

30g butter

30g plain flour

400ml warm milk (or half single cream and half milk, if you want a richer sauce
)

freshly grated nutmeg

salt and pepper

Melt the butter in a small pan over a very low heat without letting it colour. Stir in the flour and cook for 30 seconds or so. Very gradually pour in the warm milk, using a small whisk or wooden spoon quite actively to prevent lumps forming. As it starts to simmer, the sauce will thicken – keep adding more milk, a little at a time, whisking as you go. If lumps do begin to form at the start of the process, let the sauce bubble back into a thick but sloppy paste before adding the milk again, whisking all the time.

When all the milk has been added, let the sauce cook, with hardly a bubble, for 5 minutes or so, until thick, smooth and creamy. Season with salt and pepper – and a grating of nutmeg, if you like (especially good with lasagne).

Make the White Sauce above, adding 2 good handfuls of grated Parmesan, Cheddar or other fairly strong hard cheese when it is cooked. The cheese should melt even when the heat is turned off. Taste it as you go, adding more or less cheese according to taste. A level teaspoon of your favourite mustard will add spike.

Custard is a great way of using up egg yolks. You may not be aware that, unless it makes a fanfare about it, bought custard rarely contains any egg at all. Make it if you are planning a meringue fest, as a way of using up all the unwanted egg yolks – or you can make it anyway and freeze the whites (see
page 22
).

With custard, you need to watch the heat: too much, too fast, and the mixture might scramble or separate. So go easy, using a non-stick pan and a wooden spoon for stirring.

Serves 4

3 egg yolks

1 tablespoon caster sugar

275ml single cream – or milk, if you prefer

Whisk the yolks and sugar together in a good-sized bowl. Bring the cream or milk
just
to boiling point. Pour this slowly over the egg and sugar mixture, whisking constantly as you do so. Now pour the lot into a clean, heavy-based saucepan, turn the heat very low and stir the custard gently but constantly with a wooden spoon until it begins to thicken. By thicken I don’t mean
thick
– it should coat the back of the spoon without dribbling right off, and that’s all. Remove from the heat and strain through a sieve.

If, despite all your best efforts, the custard does start to curdle, pour it into a clean bowl, put this in the sink, and let cold water come half way up the side of the bowl. Whisk vigorously. This works around 50 per cent of the time and there is almost nothing you can do with curdled custard if it doesn’t.

The very end of a jug of home-made custard
This can be baked in a little ramekin at 180°C/Gas Mark 4, preferably in a small roasting tin containing enough water to come half way up the side of the ramekin. Add a few berries, if you like, or a topping of soft brown sugar, and bake for 10-15 minutes, until set. Allow to cool, then set aside for a solitary lunchtime pudding.

Hellmann’s is great, but fresh mayonnaise has its particular appeal and making it really isn’t complicated. You can pep it up with all sorts of chopped ingredients – garlic, herbs, cornichons, anchovies, capers and the like – to go with steak, fish, salads or sandwiches. Think of a tarragon mayo with cold chicken, dill mayo with cold salmon or caper mayo with cold boiled ham. As any Belgian knows, garlic mayonnaise is pure luxury with chips or spooned over boiled potatoes.

I use a food processor, which is easier, though you can do it by hand in a bowl with a whisk or wooden spoon. Go slow with your pouring hand.